Taking account of environmental damage: a brief overview

Legal systems can take account of environmental damage in different ways. One is to use the existing structures of tort and delict but to recognise new ways in which personal and property interests can be harmed through the loss of ecosystem services, in the same way as in the past personal injury was extended to include psychiatric harm. The other is to create new structures which directly recognise and seek to remedy harm to the environment, and the EU Environmental Liability Directive shows the challenges in designing such a scheme.